Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast: The Fight for Reproductive Rights During the Spring Legislative Session 2023
By Zoe Burnett
During my sophomore year at Tulane University, I applied to be a part of the Reproductive Rights and Reproductive Health Internship with Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast (PPGC). The spring semester of 2023 was my second semester working as a communications intern at PPGC where many of my responsibilities surround social media and promoting PPGC’s mission. Over the past year, I have helped grow PPGC’s social media platform on Tik Tok and Instagram by creating educational videos on topics from sexual health, reproductive rights, legislative session content, and vlogging PPGC events. This semester, I also improved my graphic design skills. For PPGC’s collaboration with 225Gives, a philanthropic organization for nonprofits, I designed a series of graphics to promote donations online. Additionally, for Give Nola 2023, I created sets of graphics to post online leading up to the day of giving, and it was special to see my designs being posted online by people supporting PPGC.
While honing these skills to increase engagement between the Louisiana community and PPGC is rewarding, what I am most proud of is my work concerning the legislative session and policy surrounding sexual health and reproductive rights. In collaboration with WHIV, a human rights radio station, PPGC is a monthly guest host on the ProFrequency show about sexual and reproductive rights. My contribution to this podcast show has been researching potential guest speakers and creating interview questions for the podcast to facilitate an open dialogue on sensitive topics. Additionally, by attending in-person events for PPGC, I have had amazing networking experiences with others interested in or working for sexual and reproductive health/rights, politics, and advocacy. At the “My Body, My Choice” event for the debut of the collection of intimate videos on why Black New Orleanians are pro-choice, I met many residents of New Orleans trying to defend their reproductive rights and several politicians representing New Orleans, including Royce Duplesis and Delisha Boyd. The togetherness shared at this event between the people disclosing their personal stories impacted me very strongly, and it reaffirmed my dedication to fighting for reproductive rights.